Chelsea 4-2 Brighton & Hove Albion, Premier League: Tactical Analysis

Today at 11:07 AM

The whole world in the Palm(er) of his hand

After doing the double on Brighton last season (albeit while receiving a red card in both matches to Conor Gallagher and Reece James) and noting the clear improvements we have been making this season under Enzo Maresca, the expectation should have been a confident win. Robert Sánchez could be seen hyping up the starting XI in the pre-game huddle and I immediately messaged our group to say that I was happy to see him with that sort of confidence and how important that could be to his performance...and he proceeded to lay an egg. Both of their goals could be attributed to his poor decision-making while under pressure, and his seeming confidence was just that, seeming. Thankfully, Cole Palmer has confidence (and skill) in abundance, and rightly so.

After completing 45 minutes midweek, Malo Gusto was fit enough for the start in this match and completed the full 90. With right back our thinnest position at the moment, it is a fortunate break that he was able to come back from injury when he did. Reece James has recently posted that he "is doing well and hopes to see us soon," and of course to have two players competing for each position is what Maresca wants. Wisely, Maresca chose Cucurella to invert, likely to save Gusto's legs from being overworked. Yet still, it was surprising that Cucurella was removed and Gusto stayed on for the full time.

Just a side note now that Reece James has posted that he is nearing a return - there has been clamouring for him to step into Wesley Fofana's spot rather than his typical position to preserve his deteriorating hamstrings from either inverting into midfield or dominating the entirety of the flank. This keeps Gusto in the starting XI and eliminates the occasional gaff that Fofana is capable of producing. While there is some reasonability there, perhaps James, as counterintuitive as it seems, might be better suited to the cup games until he can prove that he is still capable of producing both defensively and offensively given his injury proneness. Putting him into a less familiar position does not seem the most viable option just for the sake of it.

The passing matrix above would typically read into a poor performance, but our concession of possession and territory has been a noticeable trend this season. Moreover, we often play better in this fashion than when we dominate the ball. Opta recently published an article studying how the pressing in the Premier League has become so intense and rigorous that playing out from the back is nigh never effective. Even Manchester City have started doing it less than in previous seasons. Once again, 75% of the match was played in our defensive or the middle third (38% and 37% respectively) and with that quantity of the match being played in our territory it once again demonstrates how a quicker transition is much to our benefit - even if Maresca would certainly prefer a more controlled approach.

But while it works to our benefit, it also works to our detriment. While we can blame Sánchez for both goals, and rightly so, both were predicated by our intention to play out from the back. While he bears the blame for coming off his line for their first goal when he likely would have saved it had he stayed back, the turnovers that occured before that were entirely the fault of the disorganisation in front of him. For the second goal, he bears the entirety of the blame for his hospital ball to Moisés Caicedo, but he at least admitted afterward his culpability and vowed to do better. The major issue with that is that there have been multiple times when his passing inadequacies have been exploited, and this is most certainly not a singular instance. Like with virtually every other position on the pitch, his starting place is far from a guarantee and his passing has left us vulnerable repeatedly.

The reason both Noni Madueke and Jadon Sancho were less influential in this match than they have been in recent weeks is simply because they prefer the ball at their feet while running at a defender rather than to run in behind, which is where we thrived against Brighton. It is well-known that Brighton play a high line, but exploiting that was extremely simple with the quality of passes we had from the midfield forward. As noted above, we had less possession and the ball was in our half for almost a third of the game, and yet we had some telling statistics that would theoretically convince Maresca why we should not yet completely disregard this pragmatic, possession-less approach: we had 13 shots inside their box, a 33.3 yard average pass directness, only 9 passing sequences that exceeded 10+ passes (we were playing directly rather than roundabout), our xG was as high as a 4.16 via FOTMOB, and yet, because we are not entirely clinical, we could have both scored more or even lost this match. Those eerie repetitions of seasons past were, again, subsided by Cole Palmer's greatness.

There are countless things that could be praised about Palmer's goal contributions since joining the league, but he became the second-fastest to score four goals in a game and the sixth-fastest hat trick in the league. Equally impressively, he is just the second player ever to take at least 10 penalties in the league and have a 100% success rate. And yet he had two goals chalked off for offside and hit the post in the first half, just showing that both he was capable of more and how open this match was. Do not expect this to be the norm in the league, but thankfully it worked to our benefit.

Beyond our match this weekend against Nottingham Forest, the subsequent fixtures include Liverpool and Manchester United away, and Newcastle and Arsenal at the Bridge. We surely need to address the sloppiness at the back prior to those matches, even if Manchester United's poor performances are not dissimilar to ours from the past few seasons. It sure is nice to watch some quality football being played again though, am I right?

KTBFFH.

Enzo Fernández

Benoît Badiashile

Moisés Caicedo